Jan 30, 2025, 8:27 PM UTC Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images Andrew J. Hawkins is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State. On an earnings call last night, Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent a lot of time talking up his company’s plans to “go ballistic” on artificial intelligence, and very little time on Tesla’s core business, which is making and selling electric cars. There was so little attention paid to Tesla’s automotive business, that even a bunch of investors were left scratching their heads. “Is this a car company?” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas wrote in his note to clients Thursday. He followed up with a second note that put a finer point on it: “Almost no discussion of the core auto business. While around 80% of the company’s revenues is (still) automotive, the discussion during the prepared remarks and Q&A was almost entirely around autonomy, AI and robotics. We see a pattern here.” It’s long been theorized that Musk has grown weary of the day-to-day of running a car business, as evidenced by his growing number of side hustles (SpaceX, X, xAI, Boring Company, Neuralink, etc). And now that he’s been elevated to an unofficial-official member of the Trump administration, overseeing a massively controversial effort to slash costs by purging the federal employees, the time he spends actively involved with Tesla has grown even smaller. “Almost no discussion of the core auto business.” When he does talk about Tesla, he almost exclusively focuses on the company’s efforts to build humanoid robots and self-driving cars. Clearly this is what animates him, not the quotidian business of FMVSS compliance, energy consumption homologation, and software recalls. He truly believes that Tesla will dominate the world through AI, not battery-powered vehicles. Of course, Tesla doesn’t really earn any money from its AI business yet. But investors, clearly caught up in Musk’s fervor, asked exactly zero questions related to the company’s stated plans to introduce new, more affordable models this year. They could have grilled him about the production ramp, the next-gen vehicle platform, expected profit margins, and other key questions. But instead we got queries about Tesla’s Optimus robot and when Tesla customers could add their own cars to the company’s robotaxi network. SHANGHAI, CHINA - JULY 07: Tesla Bot Optimus is on display during the 2024 World AI Conference & High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance at Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center on July 7, 2024 in Shanghai, China. (Photo by John Ricky/Anadolu via Getty Images) Anadolu via Getty Images Maybe that’s because Tesla’s car business is looking a little shaky right now. The company’s sales declined year over year for the first time in over a decade. Vehicle production in 2024 was down 4 percent compared to 2023, and deliveries were down 1 percent. Even though the Model 3 was updated last year, and the Model Y, the best-selling car in the world, just got a similar upgrade, Tesla’s vehicle lineup is looking a little stale. The newest model in the family, the Cybertruck, went from hot ticket to disappointment in less than 12 months. Meanwhile, Tesla’s competitors are continuing to roll out new models in a variety of segments and at different price points. Tesla’s shareholder deck did contain one update on the company’s next-gen vehicle platform and forthcoming more affordable models: they’re still in the works. And that’s basically it. Even though Musk tried to kill the so-called Model 2 once before, it’s back on the menu. Or so Tesla claims. One analyst asked how the expected elimination of federal EV incentives and tax breaks under Trump was likely to affect Tesla’s business, which is still heavily dependent on vehicle sales, and you know, maybe Musk could persuade his good buddy the president to reconsider? Musk dodged the particulars of his relationship with Trump and the tax break by waxing philosophical about EVs: Sustainable transport is inevitable. I’m highly confident that all transport will be autonomous [and] electric, including aircraft. And that it simply can’t be stopped any more than one could have stopped the advent of the internal combustion engine. That’s about as close as Musk came to assuring investors that Tesla’s automotive business was in good hands. Don’t worry about losing those tax breaks. Don’t worry about the Model 2 (now apparently called the “Model Q,” I guess)! All of this is inevitable! It’s a very force majeure style of argument. And Tesla’s stock price certainly backs it up. The company’s stock dipped right before the market closed — but then soared in after-hours trading. Now it’s back up to $402 in its safe zone. If Tesla wants to be an AI company, investors seem happy to go along with it. People with Teslas in their driveway might feel differently. See More: